Benguet Cowboy 2

Lloyd “Cowboy” Copas was born in Adams County, Ohio. His number one debut single “Filipino Baby” hit number one on four country charts. He also released various top-ten hits such as “Signed, Sealed and Delivered”, “Tennessee Waltz” and “Tennessee Moon”. His biggest hit “Alabama” rode to the top of the charts at number one for three months in the last half of 1960.

An early influence on Johnny Cash, Cowboy Copas produced some seminal work that was largely (and shamefully) forgotten as time went on. Like Ernest Tubb, Copas laid a deep, home-grown vocal style over simple, proto-honky-tonk accounts of trouble and heartbreak. As this album's title indicates, Copas is at his best when observing the darker side of life. His voice is full of so much yearning in "The Postman Just Passes Me By" that he seems about to die from loneliness. He's anything but humorless, though, as witnessed by the (literal) gallows humor of the rockabilly-tinged "Hangman's Boogie" with its refrain of "swing high, swing low," and by the light-hearted hard-luck story "As Advertised." Others may have had more mellifluous voices, but Copas invested his songs with enough honesty, passion and humor to make him one of country's unsung greats.

Cowboy Copas life was cut short in the tragic airplane crash that also killed Randy Hughes, Hankshaw Hawkins and Patsy Cline – the pilot of the plane was Copas son-in-law. His last single, “Goodbye Kisses” hit the top fifteen in April 1936, one month after his death.

There is a Boardmember Copas in Benguet. Related?